"One of the earliest Kabuki plays features an onryo, which is a vengeful spirit. The play Bancho Sarayashi (1741) is based on an old Japanese folklore about a young woman named Okiku, who was a servant for the samurai named Asayama Tetsuzan. He lusts for Okiku and propositions her, but she refuses. He then tries to trick Okiku by telling her she lost one of the ten precious plates of Tetsuzan's family. She panics and Tetsuzan offers to make the problem go away by making her sleep with him. There are different variations to the ending with Okiku refusing and Tetsuzan throwing her down a well, to Okiku throwing herself down the well. Her ghost then appears nightly counting one through nine, and then shrieking and crying . . . driving Tetsuzan mad. Ways to combat this particular onryo have varied from saying the number ten after Okiku counts to nine (showing her that the tenth plate has been recovered and enabling her to move on.)

Being one of the older stories, it is also the most famous. Along with a Kabuki adaptation, the story has been adapted into puppetry as well, called ningyo joruri. The Kabuki adaptation was staged in 1824, and poor Okiku goes through much more turmoil than the Okiku in the folklore. In the Kabuki version, Tetsuzan still agrees to let go the mistake of the missing plate if she will become his lover. Okiku still refuses, but then Tetsuzan has his servant Iwabuchi torture her by hitting her with a wooden sword. Unfortunately, she is unable to escape her torture Unfortunately, she is unable to escape her torture because she doesn't know where the tenth plate is.

Tetsuzan then has Okiku strung up above a well, where she continues to be hit by Iwabuchi. Tetsuzan then propositions her again stating that if she helps him kill a man named Tomonosuke so that Tetsuzan may rise to power, he will let her go. Okiku again refuses, and Iwabuchi then has her dipped in the well repeatedly so that she may have a slow death. Eventually, Tetsuzan slashes Okiku with his sword and her body falls into the well. As he cleans his sword, he hears Okiku's voice counting dishes. Her ghost rises from the well, and Tetsuzan stares at her hatefully, and that is where the play ends."